Paperman (2012) Short Film Review by Sebastian Evidente
Paperman is a black and white Disney classic that although lacks the colorful vibrancy of its Disney contemporaries, does an exemplary job of telling an all familiar story of boy meets girl.
It’s a wordless love story of an office worker and the woman of his dreams, who he happens to meet at a train station. The movie’s simple construct and black and white charm, puts its viewers in the shoes of the persistent office worker who after being struck by love at first sight, is left only with a remembrance and goes back to his dull office day job filled with paperwork and stern bosses. He later spots her through the window of the skyscraper opposite his workplace. Now faced with the possibility of never seeing her again, he devises a plan to get her attention by flying paper planes out the window, hoping that at least one of them will make it to her.
He fails miserably and eventually runs out of paper until he decides to storm out of his office in pursuit of the girl he’s afraid to lose forever.
As a showcase of destiny and the animator’s skills, the paper planes magically lead the two strangers together into a fated reunion.
Paperman is a lovely short story. It’s defining element is its black and white color scheme with the girl’s lipstick being the only exception which adds contrast to the monochrome theme and allows viewers to remember the important detail. As mentioned, the movie’s construct is simple and its sequence of events especially the introduction is easy to follow, since the movie did a great job of establishing the protagonist’s goal early on from the beginning. The movie is an animation masterpiece as well since it is a well crafted display of computer generated animation and hand-drawn animation. Christophe Beck’s soundtrack is crisp, timely and it hits all the right notes. The soundtrack did what a good soundtrack does which is add emotion to the scene without grabbing the viewer’s attention from the scene. The theme is relatable but cliche. But even if it was cliche, the method in which the boy-meets-girl, love-at-first-sight story was shown was different and new. The movie was brief and concise, Disney really hit the goldilocks’ zone with the duration of this one because if it was shorter or longer, it would’ve been worse. So kudos to Disney for that!
All in all, Paperman is a great film, Disney really brought home the bacon with this one. It is deserving of it’s critical reception and the three Academy awards it has won. A strong 9/10.